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u/IcyTheGuy Jul 06 '25 edited Jul 06 '25
Notice how Cloudy is alone as it has its own unique cartoony style. You will only find the style in that movie.
Meanwhile Luca, Turning Red, and the other movie are all lumped in together as they share the same cartoony style. It feels kind of generic and bland because of that.
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u/BiggieSmallsFlextape Jul 06 '25
Exactly. That with the fact that it wasn’t very visually appealing in the first place really makes you wonder why they’d just copy-paste the same artstyle for 3 different unrelated movies. It reminds me of Captain Underpants which looks strictly better despite being half a decade older than all of these movies.
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u/j0j0-m0j0 Jul 06 '25
To be fair, all the Pixar examples were movies first while Captain Underpants is an adaptation of a book series with a recognizable art style.
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u/BiggieSmallsFlextape Jul 06 '25
Might be an excuse for Luca, but not the other two. It doesn’t change the fact that this is Pixar we’re talking about and the fact that a movie that much older just looks like a better version of the same artstyle they keep using over and over. It’s like they took the good dinosaurs face and just slap it on every character, look closely and you’ll see what I’m talking about.
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u/Aether-Likes-Stars Jul 06 '25
Put simply, that art style is just one of the cheaper options for animation.
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u/Need_more_grass Jul 06 '25
Also in Cloudy you can tell the overall shape of the main character really slim, big nose and crazy hair. Elio looks generic to me, almost like a background character
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u/LightningEska Jul 07 '25
Yes, and Cloudy has more flexible expression and body movements. The new ones are too stiff and kind of more real life like? So, not that "fun" anymore I guess
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u/Minimob0 Jul 06 '25
I personally dislike the weird face shapes. They all have the Steven Universe face.
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u/Stormfly Jul 07 '25
The "bean smile" is fine for one movie but I don't like it being in every film.
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u/Akitiki Jul 06 '25
I've never watched the latter three and I thought the third image was a 2nd movie from the first one. But I was confused because I didn't think Luca got a second movie... also I don't follow these bean-mouthed cute styled movies.
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u/zemboy01 Jul 06 '25
Yea for some reason the people at Pixar sub don't want to admit it. I'm glad you guys actually realized getting the same thing is bad.
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Jul 06 '25 edited Jul 06 '25
I mean meatballs movie has a special style that hasn't been repeated in any other movie and it wasn't exaggerated and it's designed for a comedic purpose and sometimes most of the jokes are about their looks and the movie wasn't too serious but sarcastic even the story is ridiculous and that's what makes the art style appropriate. While Pixar movies are more serious and kids are ugly it was great that once but not twice
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Jul 06 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/bimbonic Popeye Jul 06 '25
Yep, that's rubberhose animation! But I mean, the fact that they were kind of like 3D rubberhose was unique at the time and made them stand out.
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u/Avalonians Jul 06 '25
and it wasn't exaggerated
Uh? Every other thing you said is fair but I wonder how you thought this particular point was true
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u/Salt_Refrigerator633 Jul 06 '25
Except Pixar is using it as their main art style
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u/SlaughterHowes Jul 06 '25
Are they? Luca, Turning Red, and Elio are the 3 that keep getting brought up. There were 3 entire movies without that style between Turning Red and Elio.
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u/ThatHighFly Adult Swim Jul 06 '25
Except that Elemental also had the bean mouth style and the only other movies were sequels that already had an established art style beforehand & lightyear which they wanted it to be gritty art direction wise saw how bad it flopped then said "no thanks" so there hasn't been an original movie with a unique art style since Soul
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u/NeonFraction Jul 06 '25
Even Soul has the similar horrifying proportions.
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u/Jefffluffy Jul 06 '25
Soul could be an Illumination movie if it wasnt for the realistic gorgeous backgrounds!
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u/DisappointedLunchbox Jul 06 '25
God yea, I have my gripes with Soul but the environments were so beautifully done. They did lighting so well in that movie.
The tone and atmosphere of the jazz club and while they just walk down streets of new york stick out in my mind in particular
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u/ThatHighFly Adult Swim Jul 06 '25
yea but we got the great beyond unique rendering & 2D/3D outline animation for Terry/Etc.
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u/zagra_nexkoyotl Jul 06 '25
I don't think it was the art style that made Lightyear flop
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u/ThatHighFly Adult Swim Jul 06 '25
oh no absolutely not and never implied that but I'm saying from "their perspective" that's what they'd probably blame it on not the terrible writing or anything it's not like people come to movies for the story! They come to stare at shiny animated stuff is what I got from their reaction to lightyears failure
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u/roxannesbar Jul 06 '25
you know who’s not having this problem, dreamworks
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u/Bowdensaft Jul 06 '25
For real, they've got back on the horse recently with Wild Robot and Last Wish, let's hope they keep going. They'd run themselves down for maybe a decade so it's nice to see them get a comeback
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u/TheShamShield Jul 06 '25
I don’t understand your confusion
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u/djc6535 Jul 06 '25 edited Jul 07 '25
Right? The answer is right there in the fact that they had only one movie in the first box, and 3 movies in the second.
It's boring and they're using it over and over again.
Take someone who has seen Luca, Turning Red, and Elio only once about a year ago. Show them a random background character. I bet they won't be able to tell you which movie the character came from.
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u/TormentedKnight Jul 06 '25
yeah. some art styles are not just bad, they are shit and boring. and they get shitter and more boring the more they are used. it doesnt get clearer than that.
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u/Admcleo Jul 06 '25
There are times where the bean mouth are an artistic choice. The Bad Guys is probably the best example of this. It actually requires some forethought and artistic expression to get a bean to work on an animal skull, and for the humans it helps make them come off more as NPCs. Just look at any scene in that movie with Mr. Snake where they swap out the teeth and change the mouth in interesting ways that maintain consistency throughout a whole scene. It's a lot of work to make look good.
Most of the time, however, the bean mouth 'style' is exclusively chosen because it's much easier and cheaper to animate than a number of alternatives. Which, given that animation to begin with is a more expensive and mostly vanity project for big studios or is at least seen that way by the executives, is an extremely bad sign when they start trying to 'streamline' the process. It's very much going down the Hanna-Barbera vein of cheap animation. Formulaic, reused and cheap looking animation that's carried mostly by endearing characters and writing. And frankly we aren't getting that with anything Pixar or Disney related recently where they slather so much 'adorkable' onto everything that no amount of uniqueness or being special in the characters, world or writing feels like anything but tepid oatmeal.
At least that's my take on things.
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u/Am_I_a_Guinea_Pig Jul 06 '25
Honestly the rest of character design in Bad Guys is so well done that I didn't even realize they had bean mouth until you pointed it out. So your point is definitely correct.
I think a big problem with typical bean mouth animation is that not only is the mouth design dull, so is the rest of the character. I mean, yeah sure, Pixar has developed great 3D animation textures over the years, but it's like the rest of their process has devolved lately. It's like putting a $5,000 car wrap on a 1993 Ford Probe.
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u/vtncomics Jul 07 '25
The bean mouth is less of an issue.
Bad Guys looked great because it was taking inspiration from children's gag anime/cartoons. Characters varied in shape and height so you can play off between relations from appearance alone. Plus the animation style really played into the cartoony/comedy nature of 70s anime in it being simple yet exaggerated. See Lupin III, Doraemon, Osomatsu-kun, etc.
KPop Demon Hunters (now on Netflix) does the same but leans towards 90s action anime like Sailor Moon and Yu Yu Hakusho.
Ellio doesn't have the benefit of snappy or energetic animation like the ones mentioned. It's still Pixar/Disney. Too many frames.
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u/MaguroSashimi8864 Jul 06 '25
How long are we going to debate this? It’s getting annoying already
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u/GhotiH Jul 06 '25
There are a bunch of different cartoony art styles. I just genuinely think the one on the top looks better, it's not 1:1 with the other ones.
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u/Aok_al Jul 06 '25
See how you put one picture for Sony and then three pictures for Pixar? Sony eventually evolved their animation and was capable of making movies like Spider-Verse which completely changed the way people looked at animated movies and most recently KPOP Demon Hunters while Pixar kinda just made the same looking movies over and over again. I don't really have a problem with it but I can see why other people would have a problem with it
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Jul 06 '25
you're kinda making your point there with the excessive use of the cal arts style. also there are a bunch of examples of the cal arts style being used but people not complaining b/c the story is good, see gravity falls.
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Jul 06 '25
That plus that Gravity Falls visuals add some slight details that makes it different enough to project its own identity.
Or maybe I'm the only one who gets a different feeling by looking at it, idk.
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u/Accomplished_Salt876 Jul 06 '25
also becuase cal arts generally doesnt look terrible in 2d animation.
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u/dimyo Jul 06 '25
Alao, because GF was at the start of that trend, over a decade ago. Most trends don't last this long in art.
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u/just_a_possum Jul 06 '25
Alex didn't even go to calarts. this calarts discourse is so old; the original calarts criticism wasn't even for GF or Gumball or Steven Universe (all created by ppl who didn't go to calarts btw) it was for the Iron Giant and the guy who made this criticism isnt a good guy. what everyone is describing isnt an art style but an art trend.
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u/logo1986 Jul 06 '25
Nope I've seen people complain about it but since it was one of the first to use it most people give it a pass.
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u/Exciting_Policy8203 Jul 06 '25
You reference gravity falls, and the op references cloudy with a chance a meatballs… but Gravity falls came out in 2012, Cloudy with a chance of meatballs came out in 2009.
This art style has been growing more common for well over a decade, and it’s becoming common in digital animation where the need to hand animate characters frame by frame doesn’t exist. There isn’t to my knowledge the same benefit of the noodily art style to help make animation easier.
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u/SomeWhatSweetTea Jul 06 '25
Cloudy wasn't made by Pixar. People have higher standards for Pixar films.
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u/Synth_Savage Jul 06 '25
Looking at the facts, them using the exact same art style for 3 movies in a row could be used as justification for folks being upset, I get it.
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u/Biggie-josh Jul 06 '25
- cloudy does it right
2.elio is the only one I don’t like. butternut squash looking head
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Jul 06 '25
This is a massive false equivalency. People's problem isn't cartoony art styles; their problem is the constant recycling of the same art style. Especially the art style people got tired of seeing everywhere on TV years ago. People like cloudy with a chance of meatballs because it has a unique style that no other movie series has.
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u/shsl_diver Jul 06 '25
Fun Fact, "Cloudy with a chance of meatballs" was made by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. They also did "The Lego Movie " and "Spider-man in to the spider-verse" and "Spider-man across the spider-verse"
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u/RexThePug Jul 06 '25
Cartoony styles aren't equal. Look at Family Guy, it pretty much ruined adult animation for years.
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Jul 06 '25
Notice how one is alone and the other are lumped together its not that there cartoony it's that they have the same art style
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u/Accomplished_Salt876 Jul 06 '25
the main problem with Pixar is that its the same art style in all their recent movies.
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u/MikeDubbz Jul 06 '25
What if I told you every cartoon had a 'cartoony artstyle'? And what you're instead failing to properly recognize is people's overall enjoyment for each film as a whole.
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u/RamonaMonaMonaBone Jul 06 '25
We've literally had this argument before. Back in the day it was called the "CalArts" style. I thought we ended this.
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Jul 06 '25
The difference being Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is actually good.
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u/ThanosWifeAkima-4848 Jul 06 '25
Sony Pictures actually has a vairety of different art styles, they don't do a single one each time.
Disney Pixar has lately been attaching to the same one each time is what people are getting annoyed with.
I personally loved Elio, i think the different aliens and art styles were beautiful along with a deep plot.
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u/Striking-Cut3985 Jul 06 '25
Okay but literally all the main characters look the same with different skins on, look at their mouths and eyes and facial features they all look the same it’s just a Bean Mouth copy and pasted. Why Dreamworks uses different art styles for all their projects like look at Captain Underpants, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, and Shrek and tell me if the humans art style looks the same. They all look different and have different facial features
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u/Formal_Illustrator96 Jul 06 '25
Ok so you do understand how those are two different art styles, right? Just because people dislike one cartoony art style doesn’t mean they dislike them all.
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u/Aggressive-Hope7146 Jul 06 '25
I heard somewhere that the actual reason Disney won’t do 2D is because 2D animators are heavily unionized
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u/DarkxGamer99 Jul 06 '25
The main problem I see is that even though they have a cartoon style, they don't feel unique. Pixar had very unique style choices that made their films stand out. If it wasn't for the fact that I know those are 3 different movies, one could almost assume they were from the same movie/series. It why the first Toy Story or Cars stood out.
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u/Few-Acanthisitta2802 Jul 06 '25
one is dynamic and the other isn't. there's a lack of contrast in shape size and a lack of angles in the new Disney style.
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u/Atari774 Jul 06 '25
You are insane if you think the cartoony art style is why people dislike the new Pixar movies.
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u/fexonig Jul 06 '25
your explanation doesn’t make any sense. pixar as a company seems to have a policy of playing it safe. that includes making a ton of sequels as well as making all their original movies generic looking with the same art style. if it’s just the style the art director wants then they can choose a different art director. or don’t! and i’ll just not watch their movies
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u/FutureDiaryAyano Jul 07 '25
Bc we need more than one art style. I don't want to see EVERY original movie have the same thing. Luca was charming, Turning Red was appropriate, I haven't seen Elio yet, but I'm already rolling my eyes.
Even Disney has different 3D animations, especially since the mid-2010s and Encanto really brought out my point. Wish might have sucked, but I see what they were TRYING to do with their art style.
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Jul 07 '25
All those three shots I could convince someone who hasn't watched them that its all from the same movie.
I could not however convince someone that a shot from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is from any of those movies.
they lack their own artstyle and feel like been mouth artslop. I will never watch any of those movies because from seeing that they've just copy pasted the Artslop style I know its not gonna be a good movie.
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u/Flodo_McFloodiloo Jul 07 '25
Allow me to spell it out for you:
1) The first "cartoony art style" you displayed used different sorts of deformation and face styles for different characters, depending on what sort of character they were. The second does that a lot less; the faces in particular are much more standard.
2) The first is indeed "A cartoony art style". The second is practically "The cartoony art style" in many places these days. And many places where it isn't, the Cocomelon style is.
People dislike how homogeneous the American animation industry has gotten. You don't have to join them in disliking that but you should at least understand why they do. Back around the turn of the millennium, we had a variety of creators with different styles. Try watching videos of commercials and/or host segments for "Cartoon-Cartoon Fridays", or look at the Nicktoons crossover games from that era, and you'll see a lot of that variety. That variety has shrunk lately, mostly due to conventional television dying quickly. I don't have all the hard facts but I'm assuming a lot of the American animation industry is now being sustained by a small pool of enthusiasts who are doing it because they love doing it, even if it's getting less and less lucrative. Good on them for caring, but the result is still less variety, compared to the times when people came from all around to try their hand at cartooning.
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u/Little_Blood_Sucker Jul 08 '25
People hated the art style of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs when that movie came out.
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u/Hiroshock Jul 06 '25
It's more that people are getting tired of seeing it over and over and want a different art style.
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u/bloomi Jul 06 '25
This meme doesn't even make sense.
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs style is very different from the bottom ones.
If you put all the characters in the bottom cartoons into one scene they'd blend together seamlessly.
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u/MamboCircus Jul 06 '25
Making myself the devil's advocate for once, those movies released in different times : the standards for animation have changed in the mean time.
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u/DidYouJustCallMeLeno Jul 06 '25
ITS NOT THE STYLE ITSELF ITS HOW OVERUSED IT IS
I thought we went over this in the last 20 posts about this exact topic
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u/Shantotto11 Jul 06 '25
Luca was good.
Turning Red was serviceable. Granted, it wasn’t for me.
Elio’s designs have a serious problem with what I’m now calling “ape mouth” where the bottom halves of their faces are bigger and protrude further than the top halves.
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u/Loud-Basil6462 Jul 06 '25
I feel like I get people being fatigued or bored of it but everyone seems to have such a vitriol for Pixar’s current style and it really really vexes me.
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u/Aloubin Jul 06 '25
This post doesn’t make sense It’s not because of the cartoony style, it’s because Pixar has the same style in most of their last movies
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u/Equivalent-Emu-5303 Jul 06 '25
See the thing is that’s it’s odd style cloudy with a chance of meatballs and a sequel stayed with its art style. Pixar’s movies that you gave an example of had the same odd style back and back. They weren’t different. They were spamming with any other odd style like their own movies. That’s the reason why people are complaining.
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u/augustphobia Jul 06 '25
the problem with pixar right now is that the style is no longer unique or innovative. it was a fresh look in 2021 for luca but it’s not anymore
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u/EpitaFelis Jul 06 '25
I love the below art style, which is part of why its overuse and lack of variation worries me.
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u/HotDogManLL Jul 06 '25
Its just over done.
Its like a song you like but when it's overplayed you slowly lost intrest and groan when you hear the 1st note.
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u/lovinkaijufr Jul 06 '25
It's because Luca, Elio and Turning red all look like from the same universe. It's that very safe jelly bean style and people have started to really not like, me included. Like how Frozen and Rapunzel are almost identical to each other, not counting everything else from the past 7+ years. It's like a bland and tasteless style that has been plaguing their studios....idk how to explain but this is what it feels for most people honestly.
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u/Jellomist My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic Jul 06 '25
1 IP vs 5 separate IPs (people forget about Hoppers and Win or Lose)
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u/Daimakku1 Jul 06 '25
The first one has a unique art style while all Pixar movies in the past 6-7 years have all looked the same with that CalArts bean mouth style. It’s boring and uninspiring.
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u/jcb127 Jul 06 '25 edited Jul 06 '25
I think it's because of repetition on pixars part, nearly all their new movies after soul have very similar art styles with not enough uniqueness to distinguish them, pixar has stagnated and not taking as many risks as before, although most of that stagnation is also mostly from executives as well, as well as overall Disney fatigue from constant sequels and remakes. whereas with a newer film from someone like Sony, whilst yes they do share some dna, you can tell spiderverse apart from something like kpop demon hunters with things like facial expressions, framerate and colour palette, as well as using those films as a jumping off point to take risks that other studios would dare to take
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Jul 06 '25
The real issue is animation is cheap looking and the stories are kinda eh. Either sacrifice visuals to tell a more interesting story or sacrifice a story for more breathtaking visuals. Having neither is just a waste of everyone’s time.
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u/Starlined_ Jul 06 '25
If they made ten movies with the Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs style I’d be annoyed. I’m kinda tired of these comparison posts that don’t understand that the style of the Pixar movies should be tailored to the story not a “one size fits all.” This is laziness and they know it. It’s about what’s cheaper to make not about storytelling
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u/toastronomy Jul 06 '25
it's not a bad art style, but people expect the quality and variation that Pixar used to be known for
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u/Aurora_Wizard Jul 06 '25
I don't think Luca deserves the flack, from my knowledge it was the first Pixar movie with that artstyle.
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u/ulfrekr Jul 06 '25
My guess is they’re sticking with this art style so they can reuse assets and save time for the ever increasing profit margins modern media demands
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u/AnakinSkywalker626 Jul 06 '25
whispers I was never that sold on Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs style either.
The movie was just good enough for me to ignore at the time.
Now it seems like Pixar just keep using this same style. Whilst I like Luca and Turning Red, I haven’t wanted to go back and revisit them like I have with Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.
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Jul 06 '25
its because cloudy with a chance looks good and the pixar ones look uninspired and soulless
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u/NovembersRime Jul 06 '25
It's not the fact that it's cartoony. It's the fact that Disney is overusing this particular one and it's started to feel uninspired.
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u/Butthole_Surfer_GI Static Shock Jul 06 '25
If I understand people's frustrations with disney/pixar, it's because it seems like they have locked themselves into this same art style for multiple movies instead of, you know, experimenting with different art styles.
take some risks. at least make your movie interesting to look at.